Chapter 35

"I thought of that, Master, but this is like a shield. Perhaps it is like what protects the stigga when they attack."

"Have you found out more about that?"

"No, Master. It must be a spell put on just before they enter our world."

Spell was just a term that had no direct translation other than the effect that was put on an inanimate or animate object. I didn't know how physics did any of this.

When all the books had been searched twice, the passages were copied. The chest was brought in and we tried to think of ways to open it without damaging it in any way. It was a beautiful box and I did not want to ruin something that could be prevented with a little time to figure it out.

I tried a sharp knife and found that there was a shield around the chest like Osston said. A stone knife was not any better, though it worked against a stigga. This started a new quest to find what could touch the surface. Wood, hands and living things could do it, as well as bone. Surprisingly, silver and copper were found to work.

I layed a strip of each metal on the chest while I thought more. When I bumped them together accidentally, I got a bright flash of light and heat. I fell over in shock. The rest of the people in the room had done the same thing. When I checked the two pieces of metal, I saw that they were seriously pitted from the arc. This is what it looked like when we used a carbon arc and compressed air to cut steel or burn sections off a surface. Here we used four to seven hundred amps.

The children and even the trainees were frightened. My guards were looking at the chest as a threat.

"Don't worry. The chest contains a lot of power or it did. It acted just like our welding machines."

The chest went outside with a lot of trepidation. I even had to carry one of the handles built into the side. I hoped that I had shorted the shield and it would now open but this was not the case. Perhaps I could bleed off the power to defeat the shield. We could also learn something as we did this.

"Somebody get some clipboards and paper. I need a ruler too."

I passed the now warm silver bar and then the copper one around and said, "Measure the bars for an experiment. Somebody get a voltmeter."

The chest was measured and the metal was put back on. Instead of touching them I used the meter. I had ninety volts but I could have a lot of some other power I could not detect. The amount of contact was measured as well as the spacing between the two bars. I got nearly a thousand volts DC in one pair of spots. Touching the chest with the hand and one bar had no effect. It had to be copper and silver.

All sorts of metal shapes were found and laid on the chest. Gold even worked but it did better with copper than with silver. I thought of the power of a lightning bolt and figured I could bleed it off to remove the shield.

Osston looked just as enthralled by our experiments as the rest of the students.

I looked at the lightning gun. The whole weapon was smaller than a derringer. There was a straight section that looked like the barrel of a pistol but it had a slightly oval cross-section to it. It came to a blunt point at one end with what looked like a lens, but it was made of silver like the rest of the weapon. The angle of the barrel to the butt reminded me more of a rifle because they were nearly in line.

On each side of the icon, among other decorative designs, were what looked like a lightning bolts. The barrel looked smaller in proportion than any pistol I knew of. The weapon was balanced at the middle of the handle. While not uncomfortable, the handle didn't seem to quite fit right, like it wasn't really designed for a Human hand. There was no trigger or trigger guard if this was some sort of weapon. To look at the tiny weapon was to see a decorative blob of metal with no sharp edges. It looked as inoffensive as anything I had ever seen.

"Osston, did you find anything more about this kind of weapon?"

"I haven't used one myself, Master, but I have seen others using it at times. Mostly to practice with. I have watched you on occasion."

"What have your learned about its use. My experiments were crude. I feel that there are more ways of controlling the bolt than I have been using."

"I haven't been trained in how to use it. I never got high enough in the priesthood to learn but others I have talked to said that it is similar to a chain gate. You think of the gun and the target at the same time. Think of the gun destroying the target."

"Maybe we need to get out away from anything we could damage." I remembered what I had done before and the weapon was very powerful. It even blew off the top of a hill to hit the car I wanted destroyed.

We moved near the rocky areas we had constructed to attract an enemy. I held the gun up and pointed it at a large rock about a 300 metres away. I thought about the rock and the beam striking the rock. The bolt shot out startling everyone near me. I wanted a small burst as if it would just wound. This may be like using a howitzer to wound one particular soldier.

"I must be doing something wrong," I said to Osston. "I can't get it to release just a small amount of energy."

"I believe you are thinking of destroying the target."

"Not this time. I just pictured the beam hitting the rock."

"Perhaps if you visualise the beam hitting less violently, Master."

I picked another target, a tree that must have been 500 metres away. "It doesn't look that vicious," I said mostly to myself. I aimed at the base of the tree, trying to get a clear picture in his mind about the tree being struck by the beam and being sheared off, but staying mostly intact. Nothing happened, and I realized I was only thinking about the tree and had not included the gun. I tried again. This time, the beam sprang out, it seemed less powerfully. There wasn't as much lightning surrounding the main beam. It struck the tree where I had pictured and a much smaller explosion blasted the tree off the base. The remainder of the tree had been thrown into the air to land about 5 metres from where it had stood.

"That was better," Osston said. "You might not want to completely destroy a target. It might be too close to something or somebody you don't want damaged."

"Yes, this is a very impressive weapon." I wish I had more time to use it before.

I continued to practice by picking a bigger rock some 600 metres away. I concentrated on the rock being fractured and splitting apart, but not being completely blasted. Then I included the gun.

The beam lashed out. It was surrounded by the usual lightning discharges as the beam travelled the distance to the rock. The discharges became longer and brighter, apparently picking up power with distance. There was nothing near the gun itself. I felt only a small tingle when the gun fired. The rock was hit, a piece being shattered and flung out at the point the beam hit, but most of the rock fractured into fairly large pieces and which were not blown out but not away. This is what I wanted but not exactly. Perhaps it had to do with the flaws within the target.

The only other effect we found was that the ground near me became charged, the more I used the weapon. This necessitated me moving to a new area to fire again or risk being trapped until the charge dissipated.

I had to get back to draining the power of the chest. Our silver icons were brought out first and touched to the chest. They absorbed their charge as if they touched a portal frame. This looked even more important than I thought and called out for more guards and even three machine gun teams. The priests might try to take all of this from me.

There were four lightning bolt weapons thanks to the donation of some now dead priests. The students moved a lot further away and I had to get them even further. My guards had to go, too.

I held one of the weapons to the chest and concentrated on discharging it at an unidentified target in the distance. The bolt leapt out but instead of lasting a split second I kept it working for five seconds until the weapon got too hot to hold. I had used the chest to protect me from the heat.

My eyes had been closed but I still saw the light that had bounced off anything around. The weapon had to be more powerful than a hundred lightning bolts would be.

It took a while for everybody to see again but nobody moved. The ground was saturated with a charge and to take a step could kill us. We were stuck in place for over an hour for the charge to dissipate enough for us to hop away. I was thrown a rope and I pulled a sheet of plywood over. The chest, the silver pieces and me were pulled by seven strong women out of the area. Surprisingly, I had no red skin so I would not even get a sunburn.

The chest seemed just as good as new so the experiment was just a failure.

I remembered the stone lined rooms with all the solid silver portals. This was enough to use the chain portal to Woodland again and then charge the large portal. I do not know how much the portal sucked up but it had to be a lot more than five or six lightning strikes. This chest had to access the power that permeated the universe or have one very powerful battery. The lightning bolts I thought used a small fraction of our power for control of what the priest called Mossa.

The globe for the first world was put in the receptacle. The corridor looked brighter but that could be my imagination. Osston and I carried the trunk in and placed it near the first portal. The nearest portal started to glow faintly and so did the rest of them. There must be a connection between each of them. We waited for twenty minutes until the frames stopped glowing, then walked through the dust to look at the views we found in each portal. The box did not hum or give off heat but I felt that a gigantic amount of power had been fed into this facility.

Some portals were dark but I could make out stars. Some portals showed soil as if they were buried. Some were covered in what seemed to be algae and only one showed a forest, but not one of Earth or Bejek. Most were dark as if the other end of the portal did not exist.

Osston said, "You should shut the viewer down or perhaps set them so you can see through but others cannot."

"I didn't know you could do that. Show me."

Osston explained this to me as he did to his students. He shut four portals down then had me do the next four. I was not a good student but I did manage to do what he did after a long time.

The next four were set so we could see out only and I had to mimic him again. We went back and removed the control on the first four and made them act so we could see through. I also learned how to remove all of the controls. We did all forty seven portals but I did not know about the rooms above and below.

I looked down the vertical openings when I could and up at other times. I could see no light from any portals in the darkness. It also felt funny to lean over the hole. Part of it was fear of falling but this was not all. I put out my arm and surprisingly I did not feel the weight at all. I kicked some of the ever-present dust into the hole but it only fell very slowly as if gravity in the vertical shaft was much less than in the corridor.

It was not long before I had my guard detail in here with me. I threw a tethered tire into the pit and it floated down until it reached the end of the rope. Everybody including Osston was amazed.

A heavy plank was fetched and put across a portion of the circumference of the wide opening. This plank would not be available on Earth because few trees this large were being cut now. The plank settled to the floor because both tends were outside the confines to the opening.

Osston asked, "What is this for, Master?"

"I want to test out a theory, Osston."

"I will walk on the wood, Master."

"I know you would but I want to. Help me get the rope around me."

"Master, I will do this task gladly. I am also lighter than you."

"Thank you, but I want to try."

The rope was tied around me and then held by the now flustered security detail and Osston. I would have liked one of the fall arrest harnesses with it's lanyard but I had none.

I walked onto the plank and it was more and more difficult to walk because I could not put my foot down very well. It had to do with me exerting a force against the rest of my body mass.

Those near me were very frightened for me but my own fright was getting less all the time. When I was a few metres from the edge, I thought of 'up' for a while. When nothing happened I thought of weighting even less than I did now. I stayed on the plank though I seemed to weigh only a few grams.

Osston said, "I feel that you wish to go up, Master."

"That's right, Osston."

"You are already at the top of the opening. Perhaps if you think up and toward us, as if you wish to leave the pit?"

"Good idea. I'll try it." I stayed on station though and moved nowhere. This had to be an elevating device and there had to be a way of controlling it. I did not feel too bad for the security detail waiting because that was their job. It must have been an hour and a half later and after many suggestions that I found myself fifteen centimetres above the plank. A half hour after that I could move wherever I wanted but the detail made sure the plank stayed under me.

I drifted towards the detail and I could actually still float a metre from the opening while everybody else was still rooted by the usual gravity of whatever world we were on.

Osston was only able to gasp, "Master!"

"Let's move over to one of the openings in the ceiling."

We walked across the floor and I stood under the centre of the opening that extended perhaps thirty metres up. Thirty metres looked a long way up and I regretted in a way being so adamant to try this. It took only twenty minutes before I found that I could levitate myself. My fear came stronger this time and I said, "Bring me a shorter plank."

When the plank came back I was on the floor again and the plank pointing upward. I found that I had to join the plank to me mentally or it would not rise with me. I ascended the shaft in ten seconds though I wanted to go a lot faster. Like last time I was able to shift to one side so I had my feet on solid rock.

I called down, "I made it," then I felt foolish because this was obvious. The plank was put across the side of the hole and I used the flashlight to look around. There were forty eight portals and all of them were dark. There was nothing I could do so I picked up the rope a few metres from where it was tied around my chest and threaded it around the plank. I let a bit more out and concentrated on levitating myself. It happened fairly quickly and I drifted over the edge of the pit and tried to hold my fear in check. I came down fairly quickly and had to feed the rope through my hands so I could go down.

When on the floor again I said, "Forty eight portals and another shaft going upward."

Osston looked excited so I used my mind to pass him the information I used to go up and down and then to one side. I did it four times to make sure he had it before tried it. In ten minutes he had a big smile because he was a metre off the floor.

I tried elevating Osston with me while he did nothing and then he did the same to me. Soon we could pick up more and more of the security detail. In a way it was like operating an elevator and it didn't matter who or what was in the device.

This required a lot more thought than I had been using so far. How was I able to float? Even with antigravity, there had to be a way of controlling it so I could go where I wanted. I did not see a Deity waiting here to raise and lower me so it would have to be a mechanism controlling the antigravity. Either a person or a computer was doing this. This implied that my two hours of work was just to find a way of interfacing with this computer or the computer interfacing with me.

My joy of discovery was muted by my wondering how this place worked. When we got more lanterns, we elevated the security detail to the next level and all my mind had to stay on this task. I think the security would have quit now but they would lose face in front of the others. We ascended four levels in total and found there was no upward shaft in the last.

Going down was harder in a way but we mastered it just as quickly. We went past our original level. The bottom was seven levels down from the start, so there were twelve levels in all. Each level was not the same either. Every floor had forty eight portals but they were not always the same mix and the ceiling was much higher in some and others the walls were further apart. Some portals were predominantly small, mid sized or the very large.

Some scenes through the portals were beautiful but not of Earth. I had not seen much of Bejek but I somehow did not think that the scenery was of this planet either.

Some levels had views of mountains just like Earth and I was not sure if this was my home planet or not. Most were views of other large stone rooms like what we already were in. The bottom two levels were different.

These rooms though were like the Sky Dome in Toronto and the ceiling was almost as high. The portals were paced out and I counted twenty seven strides wide and the height looked about the same. The shafts between these last two rooms was a circle of a seventy paces in diameter. It extended a hundred metres down as if it needed the additional strength of rock.